Nothing Beyond Spectacular
by SiennaFox
Summary: The end has come, but is it really the end? How could it be when things feel so unfinished? How could anything be beyond spectacular? Read to find out. (C/A)


Nothing Beyond Spectacular  
  
It was over. Meteor stopped and Sephiroth destroyed. He himself had dealt the final blow. But it didn't feel over. Scenes of the endless struggle plagued his mind. They pulled at him like weights dragging him into the depths of the ocean until he felt was ready to just let them pull him under. What had it all been for? ...Death? ...Life? ...Power? ...Revenge? ...The Planet? It had been, in a sense, for all five, he thought bitterly, his somber eyes focusing blindly on the rocky slope before him. An innocent woman's death. To save the lives of so many. Sephiroth's unbidden lust for power. Revenge, for lost lives and broken spirits, for the pain. The Planet...to save it from destruction. The very Planet that had very willingly lost one for itself...the one he needed...  
  
"Cloud?"  
  
He turned towards the voice, his Mako-enhanced blue eyes sweeping over the rough terrain. "Tifa?" She smiled weakly at him. "I thought I told you to go somewhere safe - where you could live." He set his face in a thin line, unsure of what to make of this unexpected visit. He tried to force a friendly smile, but his face felt it had been cast in stone.  
  
She sighed, eyes lowered as she kicked nervously at a rock by her foot. "I... know. You did. But I just realized something, and I had to tell you."  
  
Cloud hesitated, glancing wearily around for any sign of movement behind him. "What is it?" He knew he sounded cold, but he felt uneasy about something. And his peculiar uneasiness made him all the more uneasy. The feeling bit at him like the winter's chill.  
  
Tifa smiled, despite the chill in his tone. "After all of those feelings of fear and jealousy, and then the loss. I realized...I-"  
  
"Please... We've already...discussed this..."  
  
"-I lo-"  
  
"Tifa...don't...don't do this..."  
  
"Cloud, I have to! It just doesn't feel right if I don't. Just, please, listen to me..."  
  
"Please...Tifa," he tried to hide the pain in his voice. "You know how I feel..."  
  
She lifted her chin to stare squarely into his distant blue eyes; her chin set as if she were going into battle. "Cloud. I love you as though you were my brother and best friend. No more."  
  
Cloud looked directly into her upraised chocolate eyes as though they would produce a more clear explanation. He felt as though the world had been shaken up in a bottle and dumped out, but the moment the words were spoken his spirit felt somehow lighter than it had in the few minutes before.  
  
"I just realized this when you told me to go earlier. I saw it in your eyes." She smiled. "I could just tell. I thought it was jealousy of your love that I felt when you were with her, but it turns out to have been the feeling of a sister losing a brother to someone else. I think I was kinda..." she paused, knowing that it sounded silly, yet fitting, "...overprotective."  
  
Cloud's smile came easily this time; she had finally realized what was truly behind her feelings. "Thanks Tifa."  
  
She grinned, brushing aside a lock of her chestnut hair. "Besides. I've just found a boyfriend." Her eyes sparkled as she watched his reaction.  
  
Cloud's smile faded into an expression of surprise to that of amusement. The grin made his features appear even more hansom than usual. "That was fast. Who is the lucky man?"  
  
Tifa waved her finger in front of his face. "Now, now. That's for me to know, and you to find out." She grinned, standing on her tiptoes to look taller, barely reaching the mercenary's lean height. "Well, I'm going back to Costa del Sol, so...when you're done with your little quest, come and visit me?" She patted him on the shoulder with a slight giggle. "Okay...big bro?"  
  
Cloud hugged her to his side with his closest arm, nodding a firm pledge. "Of course."  
  
Tifa grinned, walking towards her awaiting ride. "Treat Aeris well or you know I'll be after you!" She waved from her perch on her gold chocobo. Cloud blinked, what was she talking about? Aeris had...gone. Didn't she remember? Before he could form an answer in his mind, she was gone, only a golden streak against the dark rocks.  
  
A gold chocobo! Why hadn't he thought of that? He could get anywhere he wanted riding one of the richly colored birds. But where did he want to go? His feet just kept moving him forward. As his mind shifted back into the brooding mode he had retained before his friend had showed up, his feet followed a path of their own.  
  
He shifted; feeling the familiar weight of the Ultima Weapon strapped to his back. His mind continued to drift. She had never seen his Ultima Weapon, had she? He shook his head, his spiky blond bangs falling in front of his eyes like unruly strands of gold. A faraway smile touched his lips. There was so much she hadn't seen. So much he wished he could've shown her. The Highwind. She had wanted to ride upon the huge vessel since the beginning, and he had told her that he would bring her on it someday. Someday...  
  
Absently his hand reached into his pocket, his fingers stroking the silky ribbon that lay folded up inside. He gently pulled it out, allowing it to unroll in his hand, a strand of pink serenity that enchanted his soul. To anyone else it looked like the normal accessory item, used to protect from status problems. But this ribbon was more than that, at least to Cloud Strife it was. With sudden ardor he gritted his teeth, as if to fight back tears he refused to allow to come. This had been her ribbon, the tassel of a cherubic angel. It had alighted next to him as her body slipped lifelessly into his arms. That very ribbon that had tied up her long, beautiful hair and concealed the white materia she so dearly kept and used to protect the Planet. The foolish Planet! She had lost her pure life for it; it had drawn her to her death. And she had known what it had planned for her. He subconsciously tightened his fist, curling the soft ribbon in his clenched hand. All of this was the Planet's fault! He felt guilty for the sudden thought. "No, this is all my fault..." he sighed, relaxing his clenched fist and raising the petal pink ribbon mere inches from his troubled countenance. "Her death was my fault..." his voice was barely a whisper as it touched the silken fabric in his hand. He gazed at the soft material, feeling a wave of guilt wash over him, "If I hadn't fallen off that stupid plate..."  
  
[You would've never met her. You would be miserable.]  
  
Cloud turned around quickly, but the gentle voice didn't seem to be coming from any one place, but from everywhere. It seemed as though it weren't made up of words, but of understandable tones, like it was fabricated of a manifold conscience. "Who are you?" he shouted. He didn't recognize the voice, but it was too gentle to be anything of malice, as Jenova had.  
  
[We are the Planet.] The sound cascaded like gentle waves crashing silently onto him from every angle.  
  
How could he hear the Planet? He wasn't a Cetra. His mind reeled.  
  
[We want you to hear.]  
  
His lifted hand dropped to his side in a fist. "I do not want to talk to you." He bowed his head in shamed defiance, turning away from the voice. But he could not turn away; it was everywhere.  
  
[She would have still summoned Holy, even if your paths had never crossed. She was the only Cetra, it was her destiny...]  
  
Cloud spun around, as if he could come face to face with the voice of the Planet itself. "It was her destiny to die?!" he seethed, his anger rising as a throaty growl. The heavy weight he felt before threatened to pull him under. "Now that the last Cetra is gone, what are you going to do? You do not have her to protect you anymore, to sacrifice her life and die for you..." he trailed off, dropping to his knees with a choked sob.  
  
The Planet seemed to laugh at his bitter remark, rippling waves of earthly tones. [There will be more Cetra, she will not be the last of her line.]  
  
Cloud looked up, puzzled. "What? S-she can't. Sh-she's..."  
  
[Come. She wishes to speak with you.]  
  
He blinked, struggling in his bewilderment. "Aeris?"  
  
[Yes. But it cannot be done here. Ride on the chocobo. It will lead you]  
  
He blinked again, rising to his feet. "What chocobo...?" he paused when he heard a light cooing sound. He turned to his left and noticed a deep crimson colored chocobo. He had never seen one of such poised grandeur. The Chocobo Sage never mentioned a crimson one either. It softly warked at him, urging.  
  
[Go on. It'll take you where you need to go.]  
  
He felt silly, listening to a faceless voice tell him what to do. But Sephiroth had done the same, spoken to him through Jenova. But this was the Planet. Could he trust the voice now echoing through his head? Aeris had.  
  
With barely a few steps he was standing by the tall bird. He settled himself onto the deep red feathers of the large creature, holding tightly to the sea of soft plumage. The chocobo warked, taking a few decisive steps forward, then arched down to pluck something up off of the rocky terrain. With a soft coo it nudged Cloud's arm with its beak, releasing the satin ribbon into his newly outstretched hand.  
  
Cloud's eyes flickered in keen surprise, studying the creature for a second. At first glance he had thought it to be a normal chocobo, aside from the crimson feathers, but he could tell that there was something different about it. Something much less wild, yet not entirely domesticated, as though it had been untouched, untainted, by human influence or ensnared in the grisly struggle for survival. Gently it warked, and blinked its large, round petal pink eyes.  
  
The chocobo seemed to float over the rough terrain. Cloud had assumed that the place he would be taken would be her burial site - the glittering lake amidst the crystalline City of the Ancients. But the chocobo ran in quite a different direction, such that he became puzzled as to where they were headed and why.  
  
[You cannot speak to a lifeless body.]  
  
He blinked. It made sense. But where then? He began to recognize his surroundings as soon as the question dare enter his mind. Contorted scrap metal and wood lay around the crushed gates that once surrounded the once- great city. Midgar. Meteor had almost annihilated it once. Pieces of the city loomed overhead, bent and twisted, yet still intact. Cloud gazed around, a feeling of sorrow rising in the pit of his stomach.  
  
The chocobo continued to run; faster, it seemed, than his own gold one back at the Chocobo Farm. It's pace slacked as it ran through Wall Market, bringing Cloud through a solemn trip down memory lane. Don Corneo's mansion, now overrun by creatures. The gym, the bar, the clothing store... In a swift trot the chocobo passed the ruins of the playground, then on through the abandoned road towards the deeper region of the plate-shadowed slums. Not a person seemed to be around as they passed, just empty streets filled with empty memories.  
  
The chocobo stopped suddenly. They were there. Cloud shook off the shock of the sudden halt, eyes darting around in trained reassurance. Jumping off the chocobo, he gazed straight at where he had been placed. It was the church, still standing after the shock of Meteor; its only imperfection was a large gaping hole in the roof...  
  
[Go in. She's waiting for you.]  
  
Vines of ivy colored the walls inside of the small building, snaking around ceiling beams and old chandeliers. The flower garden stretched further than it had the first time he'd laid eyes on it, the colorful flowers breaking through cracks in the wooden floorboards to claim the light filtering in. A smiled touched his lips when he noticed a lone figure standing among the blooms. "Aeris!" His voice cracked as it almost failed to work, but he didn't care. With great leaps he reached her, gazing at her in a fearful awe, hoping that it wasn't a dream.  
  
The figure turned around, her transparent form moving like a soft breeze as she faced him. Cloud saw a tear run down her cheek. Could a spirit cry? "Cloud...I didn't know that the Planet could reach you...a-and I...I was so alone...I-I saw you...and..." she faltered, looking to the ground.  
  
"Aeris, I..."  
  
"I'm sorry about this, you probably have a home to go back to. I-" her voice trembled.  
  
[We brought this boy here for a reason.]  
  
Aeris' bowed head snapped up. "Planet...?"  
  
[Yes, child. The deepest wish within the hearts of those who protected us will become real.]  
  
Cloud gently gazed at Aeris. "You already know what I wish for in my heart, Planet."  
  
[It shall be done once she realizes that wish within her own heart. Aeris...?]  
  
Her spirit gazed around the empty church, at the sweet smelling flowers that had once been her life, then at Cloud, whose gentle blue eyes glinted like sapphires in the dim light. "I don't want to be selfish, but..."  
  
[For once, child, be selfish, for it is the wish of all and not selfish in their eyes. We know what wish is in your heart. And...] Cloud's eyes widened as a faint green light surrounded Aeris and her spirit began to fade. [...it will be done.]  
  
Moments later Cloud heard a soft warking outside, and he ran out of the aged building, his heart racing, skidding to a stop beside the scarlet chocobo, the creature excitedly flapping its feathery wings. From the direction he had recently come, he could distinguish a cloud of dust. It rose like a great mist above the dry ground, and soon transformed into the blur of a running chocobo. The bird's glistening navy blue feathers and silver eyes glinted in the dust-laden light as it came closer. Astride it was a woman in pink, her wet honey-colored hair streaming behind her.  
  
The navy chocobo gracefully halted near Cloud, and he ran over, lifting Aeris' light body off of its back and holding her tightly in his arms, unashamed of the tears running down his face. He held her tightly, as though she could be snatched away by the wind if he let her go. "Aeris! You're really alive! It's really you..."  
  
Aeris sighed, leaning her head on his chest. "Oh, Cloud..." she felt so warm in his embrace. It felt so...right.  
  
He stroked her damp hair. "I've missed you so much, Aeris, everything felt so wrong when you were gone." He looked deep into her soul with his tranquil, ice blue eyes. "I've often wondered, how it would be if I could ever have you back."  
  
She gazed back with her eyes as green as the sea, a smile parting her soft lips. "I'll be here, Cloud. I've missed you so..." The two chocobos warked and cooed to one another as though nothing spectacular had happened. At least, nothing beyond spectacular... 


End file.
